FXVille Reel

I dont know exactly why i hadnt posted this after we made it this year, but this is a highlight reel from our company FXVille for the past couple of years. Enjoy!

Viva Las Vegas #1

So i had the experience of working on my first multi year game job and then the whole project was canceled. WB hasn't said it's official, but yeah... tis dust in the wind. Which is sad, because allot of great people worked on this game, and for quite a long time. I know i wouldn't be where i am now if i were not for "This is Vegas", but that being said, it was also rated as #3 for "10 Games we're happy were canceled" by Destructoid.

So for a couple of future posts I'm going to try and dig up some old FX work done by myself and maybe some of the more elaborate things that were made for this crazy game.

Part 1.
Water Fountains for a swimming pool. The particle effects had a material that was setup to act as if the light was being cast upwards onto the water diffuse. The particle system had to be made to turn on and then stay on in order to keep a flow of water, as well as if the particle emitter was moved (see below). This would insure that a show could be scripted easier because all that was needed was to turn a particle emitter on, delay it, move it, and then just turn it off and it would resolve itself. This "show" was scripted by co-worker Noa Barlow and i wish i had a polish pass after seeing it perform in a show like this. Ohh and it also had to be cheap, i could use no more then 2/3 particle systems each, since i knew there was going to be a crap ton of them on at once.

So much water in this game.

~Jeff

FXVille's Halo Reach Reel

Finally got around to cutting together a number of the Halo Reach moments that we had the chance to work on alongside Bungie. It was a hell of a project and one hell of a team.

Simulation_Nation01

So i have been sorta busy with work.. and well work. But i have managed to do some fun simulation stuff on the side and now am doing some for work. Here are some examples of what i have done lately.

Games i dont know why i havent played.

I have purchased but not yet played the following games...

Batman Arkham Asylum

KillZone 2

Heavy Rain

Metro 2033

Multiwinia

Obscure

Obscure2

The Path (And a ton of other indie games)

Penumbra series.

Psychonauts

BioShock

BioShock2

Far Cry2

Ghost Busters the Video Game

Indigo Prophecy

Just Cause 2

A Little King Story

And about 5 more that i cannot think of at this moment

I know a lot of these games are fantastic, and i dont know exactly why i bought them if i haven't had so much as a desire to play them. I have almost put in, 3 play through's of Borderlands on the PC and Console combined and now im playing the Halo Beta. Im not exactly sure why i haven't stepped outside my bubble and played these games. I did recently move and the yard has been a priority, but now that both are out of the way, i can get down to business right? What else is my excuse? To be honest i have none i should enjoy more things and less of the same stuff that i feel comfortable with. So let the games begin!

PS. Ohh and Alan Wake is coming out soon! ;)

Researching

So this gentlemen (Dean Wesley Smith) over at a Science fiction blog lays it out and tells you to stop putting off that story because it "needs to be heavily researched". Stop putting it off because if its "Fiction" then its make believe anyhow, what matters is that the details need to FEEL like they are real, they just don't have to be 100% accurate. If its a time peace... well thats a bit different because introducing matches into a story at an earlier time.... not so good.

I'm so glad that i read this, because the story for my game is a story that i believe needed to be researched quite heavily. It involves the Human Evolution, Deep sea technology and a various degrees of scientists and what they would act like on a job site. I feel like i should sit down and get some writing done tonight.

Here is the read if you are interested.
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=1053

Visual associations

So while getting my cup of coffee this morning i ran into an old familiar situation. The caps for the to go cups are usually black; today they were white, I grabbed one and put it on as i sat down. Then i heard James the owner talking about how he almost couldn't find the tops because they were white and he had been looking for black ones.

I instantly though about the times i too was looking for a certain Lego, or a certain object that i knew for sure was say yellow and this certain shape. After searching and searching i finally found the object, but upon looking at it... it just "doesnt feel right". Sort of like a moment in the grocery store when you look for your favorite pasta and look for it, until you discover that the label had just changed. You question if its real, if the things inside the box has changed in anyway, instead of logically thinking "oh they have obviously changed their box". We get so comfortable with our surroundings that we look for things as if its the equivalent to muscle memory, we process the information without knowing, but know the moment when something is off.. we know instantly.

So i couldn't find a Lego, so what? I'm making this point because i can remember a couple games where i was suppose to find an object but because in my mind the object was different i wouldn't find it right away. Or because of the silhouette of the object wasn't clear enough for me and i didn't think to look in a certain place. I say silhouette because i want to say that my perception of the world is a bit different then others, i am slightly red-green color blind (so is about 8% of the male population). So i have over the years relied on looking for lighting, shape, form and movement more so than looking for that "slightly pink towel".

So how could this process be improved in games? How could you show the player what they need to do in a better way other then showing them a picture or giving them a description of it. Could this be portrayed better? Could you maybe flash a picture of a room and briefly show them where it was, as if the player is "thinking and remembering". What if you could remember at any time during the game. What if the remembering part was somehow initiated by the player? One of the coolest things about the newest "Alone in the Dark" game is that you had this "soul vision" (or something along those lines), and this soul vision was initiated by blinking with one of the analog stick 'clicks'. This vision did something amazing to this almost good game, it made the player close their eyes, and risk a potential attack by limiting what the player 'saw'. I say this, because when you closed your eyes, you had this soul vision, where you could see the enemies weak spot and understand what you need to do to kill them. So what if you could close your eyes and try to think about what you need to do, or just be reminded what the last 4 digits of that phone number was. What if remembering it was a sort of game where you had to steer your memory down the path you want. How could this influence a dramatic scene? They are waiting for you to remember what wires you need to cut in that land mine, how the hell are you going to figure it out if you the player don't remember it? Find a game FAQ?

So with all that being said; for the most part, games give you a pretty good description of what you may need to go find or collect. However, what would happen though if they didn't give you a good description? What if the character that told you to go find the big red pale remembered it wrong, and its a big blue one? Would the player not collect the blue pale and walk back to the character and try to figure it out? Would they pick it up anyways and not think about it?

What would you do if faced with a conflicting description to what you are experiencing? Would you give up? What if the game went on but just punished you by making you go get it again, or what if this was actually used to further the plot and prove to everyone that the person who asked you to get all of these things is crazy?


PS. i know i asked a lot of questions, but i would love it if you could provide any kind of answers. ;)